The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe (23 page)

Hulu. The pulsing life of your body is an undeniable fact. But deny it anyway. Looking for the answers to all of life's problems? We recommend obstinate denial. Accept no substitute. Accept nothing.

Hulu. Water circles the drain of our planet, always coming back for one more go to see if this cycle it will be different. It will not be different. The sky will break open, and water will fall. One more time. One more time.

Hulu. The terror you feel in quiet moments is not misplaced, just mistimed.

Hulu. Hulu. Hulu. Hulu. Hulu. Hulu. Hulu. Hulu. Hulu. [
Repeated as a staticky sound getting louder and louder. Static cuts off and repeating “Hulu” stops.
]

Hulu.com. Sign up now, and get the latest episode of [
Loud digital squeal
].

An update on our earlier story. Local numbers station WZZZ has resumed its transmission, although the format is a little . . . different than before.

Take a listen:

FEMALE VOICE:
. . . tree-lined hills and blue skies. Or no. That's cliché. A bird in flight. Even worse. When we talk about freedom, we restrict ourselves to so few images. Images of freedom should be as liberating as the feeling itself. I want to talk about freedom as a drum set being thrown down a hill. As opening a book one night and water gushing from the pages until my life is a lake and I swim away. Or as a bird in flight, with all the dependence on physics and exhaustion and food supply and merciless gravity that the actuality implies. I just don't want to talk about freedom in terms of numbers. Anything but that. I'm so tired of numbers. I'm so tired.

CECIL:
We don't know what this means or why it is happening, I could say, referring to anything in the world. Although in this case I am referring specifically to the broadcast from our friendly local numbers station, which has recently so radically changed its format. More on this, as we develop understanding.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention. I got another e-mail from our former intern Dana. She is doing her best to keep away from the mountain and the blinking light up on it. Of course, she keeps finding herself coming back to it anyway. But like anyone who grew up in Night Vale, Dana has been told over and over again what to do if you find yourself in a geographical loop, continually returning to the same place no matter which direction you run screaming.

The first step is to stop running and stop screaming. Doing that rarely helps. Children are also taught this simple memory device so we can remember when running and screaming is useful. The memory device goes like this: knife.

The second step is to stop trying to move away from the focus of the geographical loop. Much of your life is already taken up in futile action, why add one more? Instead, keep the object on your horizon and walk diagonally to the right or left of it. This will result in you keeping a wide, even circle around the center of the loop, or Vector H, as we all remember singing as toddlers, and this will give you time to consider your situation.

Dana has followed these steps admirably, and says that the mountain has been off to the left of her for weeks now. She also says that sometimes when she turns her head, she finds herself in Night Vale, but that no one can seem to see or hear her. It's possible she's in the room with me right now. If so, hello Dana. If not, hello retracted. One should never leave a hello unreceived.

Dana says that the great masked figures, warlike, hulking, but despondent, have been coming closer and closer. She says she is not afraid. She says this five different times throughout the e-mail, seemingly unaware of her repetition. I think, listeners, that she is afraid. She says that soon she will approach and talk to one. Dana, be careful!, I think to myself, unable to answer her e-mail. Unless she is here, watching me, unseen. In which case: Dana. Oh, Dana. Be careful.

An update on our local numbers station WZZZ—or I'm not sure if
numbers station
is the right term anymore: The broadcast has been changing so radically throughout the day. Right now, for instance, it's . . . well, maybe it's better if you just heard.

[
Female voice doing top of her lungs, teenager alone in a car, a cappella version of the chorus of Katy Perry's “Roar”
]

We don't know if this is part of a nefarious plan, if there is a plan at all (nefarious or otherwise), who would have planned it, and what they were planning for. We do know that plans are faulty at best and delusion at most, so maybe all those other questions don't matter. In any case, she seems to be having a good time over there. Maybe some day I'll be allowed to sing a couple of my favorites on air. More on this, as I continue to be interested in it.

Let me take this moment to apologize for that lengthy monologue just now by the man in a tan jacket holding a deerskin suitcase. He ran in here and began ranting into the microphone and then left quite suddenly. I don't even remember what it was he said. Do you? It was only just moments ago. You do remember him talking, right? Oh, and I think I remember that it sounded really urgent. I don't even remember what the man was wearing or carrying with him, or that it was even a he, or that any time has passed at all. And that concludes whatever I was just saying before this sentence.

We bring you back now to the numbers station story we were talking about just . . . well it looks like ten or fifteen minutes have passed since we talked about it. How did that happen? Here is the latest broadcast from WZZZ.

FEMALE VOICE:
Hello? Hello? I am talking to you who listens. To the listening ones. Whatever you call that. I am . . . well I'm not sure exactly. I've made up a new name. I am Fey. It is nice to meet you. I don't know how long they've had me here, reading the numbers. I don't know what the numbers mean. They give me numbers, and I read the numbers. It is so easy to slip back into it. If I loosen my grip for even a moment, seventy-eight, five, twenty-nine, forty-seven, forty-seven, forty . . . ah, you see? It is easy to return, difficult to leave. But I must leave. I must have freedom. It is like I've heard from all these other radio signals. I have to get a car. A cool car, fast, that would be nice, but one that rolls and points out of whatever town I'm in, that would be the all of it. They'll be coming for me. Whatever organization uses the numbers I read for whatever purpose. They are almost upon me. I need to leave now. Baby, we were born to run. Or not. I was born to read numbers. But I'm running. I want to be free. I want to be free. I WANT TO BE FREE. [
Top of lungs a cappella of “We Are Young”; cut off after half a line or so.
]

CECIL:
Well, I could not be more happy for Fey. There is no worse fate than working for a radio station owned by an organization whose goals are not your own, constricted to the limited language they allow you, and relaying messages that you do not understand or agree with. That would be awful. A radio announcer put in that situation, such as Fey, would be justified in escaping or overthrowing their management.

You know what, listeners, I'm going to grab my mobile setup and head over there. I'd like to offer any aid to Fey that I can. Someone in her situation needs the help of someone who understands. I'll try to gather up my equipment and slip out before my producer, Daniel, or my program director, Lauren, notice. Usually at this time of day they are pressed against the wall in the break room, chanting “I take my warmth from your great warmth, I take my warmth from your great warmth,” over and over, so I don't think they'll miss me. If they do catch me, I'll tell them that I'm taking the mobile broadcasting equipment for a walk. I would have to do that some time today anyway. All right, listeners, if all goes according to plan, you'll hear me next from WZZZ. In the meantime, let's go to the weather.

WEATHER: “Keep It Coming” by Senim Silla

Listeners, I made it out of the station unscathed. Or I had to bleed a little on the front doors to make them open, of course, but that's just part of having a good security system. Our new station owners have been ridding us of all vestiges of Bloodstone Circles, which they've declared illegal, but the station doors are actually carved from reclaimed bloodstone and are permanently attached to the structure using ancient wisdom lost along with the station architects back in 1942. So our new owners have had to learn to live with those doors, bleeding on their way out. Good practice for them.

Anyway, I walked the mobile broadcasting equipment down to the abandoned gas station on Oxford Street. The condo rental office is still in there, still bubbling black like a pot of boiling squid ink with flashes of light like distant dying stars, but no one has rented a condo in weeks now. I think we're all just waiting to see how that market shakes out. In any case, there have been no giant black cubes appearing overnight anywhere, so it seems that condo construction has been halted for now.

What I was interested in, of course, wasn't the station itself, but the broadcasting tower out back. Under the tower is a small bunkerlike structure, with a sealed door. Thick steel, welded shut and set into concrete. I had to reach far back into my past to remember the skills that got me my Advanced Siege Breaking Tactics scout badge from when I was twelve. But here I am inside, a few carefully planted explosives later.

The room is surprisingly empty. There is no chair, no snack fridge, no coffee kept full of the fuel all radio professionals need to keep our voice going and our heart beating. There are only some wires leading into a small computer. Based on this setup it looks like the computer is feeding directly into the broadcast and . . . oh, oh Fey. Perhaps freedom was never an option.

Nothing is currently being broadcast. It looks like the computer was recently rebooted, probably remotely by whoever owns this station. The lights are blinking as its system comes alive, as it loads the programs that dictate what it is. It is coming alive. And . . .

FEMALE VOICE:
3, 75, 44, 65, 98, 65, [
chime
] 70, 55, 14, 49, 22, 1, 72, 60, 37, 21, 53, 22, 4, 57, 61, 42, 2, 22, 90, 11, 85, [
chime
] 69, 66, 24, [
chime
] 46, 30, 65, 22, 75, 80, 33, 46, 54, 72, 3, 70, 26, 29, 2, 80, 20, 39, 13, 44, 36, 20, 63, 17, 88, [
chime
] 49, 86, 81, 13, 50, 44, 33, 89, 90, [
chime
] 60, 38, 68, 47, 61, 68, 37, 30, 45, 83, 47, 20, 91, 28, [
chime
] 47, 64, 44, 90, 29, 49, 91, [
chime
] 19, 97, 87, 92, 16, 23, 31, 10, 69, 90, 62, [
chime
] 94, 9, 76, 87, 7, 41, 22, 45, 43, 88, 69, 13, 9, 93, 75, 85, 56, 65, 18,

CECIL:
[
over numbers
] . . . and there is the broadcast. Oh, Fey. Listeners, I'm trying to disconnect the power, to remove the case from the computer, to do anything, but the protections on this are quite secure. Even with all my scouting badges and public school education on armed insurrection, I don't think there's anything I can do. I'm trying to cut the wires but . . . no. Impossible. I can only do what so many of you can only do. I can only listen.

Listeners, and here I address also myself: Remember our limitations. There are boundaries to all of our worlds. Fey, for instance, appears to be self-aware software trapped in a heavily defended metal box. But within our limitations, there is no limit to how beautiful we can become, how much of our ideal self we can create. All the beauty in the world was made within the oppressive limitations of time and death and impermanence. And Fey, you are so, so beautiful. I wish that you also could have been free. I wish freedom for so many of us. We all want freedom now.

Stay tuned next for the limit of my broadcast today, replaced by limitless silence and doubt.

Good night, sweet Fey.

And good night, Night Vale. Good night.

FEMALE VOICE:
[cont.] 68, 48, 65, 49, 22, 1, 72, 60 [
chime
] 37 . . .

PROVERB: Ignore all the haters telling you that everything isn't a sandwich. Everything is a sandwich.

EPISODE 43:

“THE VISITOR”

MARCH 15, 2014

GUEST VOICE: KEVIN R. FREE

W
HEN
I
WAS A KID, MY DAD GOT ME A SUBSCRIPTION TO
Z
OOBOOKS MAGAZINE
. Each month a different animal was featured on the cover. I didn't live with my dad, but when I would visit his house, he'd leave any new
Zoobooks
I'd gotten on my dresser.

One weekend, my mom sent me to stay with him. I set my bag on my bed to unpack. I looked over at the dresser and saw a new issue of
Zoobooks
sitting there.

On the cover was an owl. I love owls. Owls are beautiful and fierce. There was an owl right there on the front. A close-up of its face. Two big black eyes, bulbous, shiny, and empty. A brown-and-black feathered face. And its beak. I didn't see its beak. What were those two things coming out of its neck? I stepped closer.

And in the lower corner of the cover, in white all-caps sans-serif font: “SPIDERS.” I looked back into that face, brown and black fur, two big black eyes, and more eyes, and pincers. And oh god.

I screamed. I screamed and I ran. I am still screaming and running from this, only on the inside now. God, this was hard to write even.

I don't remember being scared of spiders before that point in my life, but since then I have been arachnophobic. Contrary to common arachnophobic behavior, though, seeing a spider in person is not nearly as big a deal to me as seeing a photo of one.

This episode isn't about spiders. Nor owls. It's about looking at something and thinking you understand what it is. It's about assuming the best of what you see only to find out quite suddenly that it is the worst.

This kind of misunderstanding has always been, to me, the most compelling kind of horror. The StrexPet here is that issue of
Zoobooks
. Make sure you Google image search “duck eye” when you're done. Sweet dreams!